The Most Common Exercises for Knee Pain, Plus a New Alternative Treatment If They Don’t Help

A frequent therapy for knee pain is to change up your exercise routine, whether you’ve been too sedentary and have put on weight or need to alter your current fitness regimen. Here are the most common exercises for knee pain in a few different categories, based on what you might be seeking. And if these exercises don’t do the trick, skip the pharmaceuticals, steroid injections, and surgery, and try the innovative new therapy discussed at the end instead.

Between budget concerns, covid, and busy schedules, going to a health club may not be for you. No worries – there are plenty of exercise routines you can try at home.

Yoga is easy to do anywhere, even if you travel for business. Go slow and don’t do anything that makes your knee worse. If you take it easy, yoga can improve strength and flexibility in your whole body, not just the knee.

Pilates has been around for nearly 100 years, and professional dancers swear by it. To make sure you’re doing it properly, take a class, hire a personal Pilates trainer for a few sessions, or watch a high-quality video that explains proper form that will, like yoga, help with both strength and range of motion.

Tai chi is another form of exercise you could try at home, although it’s best if you take a few classes first to learn the forms. It’s made up of choreographed sequences of flowing soft Chinese martial arts moves that relax the mind as you tone your body and improve balance without stressing the knee.

If you like the idea of using exercise machines, there are a few that are knee-friendly, and you can use them at home or at the gym. The good news is that the latest equipment technology can help you track your workouts, connect with your mobile device, and provide scenic entertainment while you work out.

To make sure you protect your knees, these are the best machines for you:

• Stationary bicycle (avoid standing in the saddle, like in spin class)
• Elliptical machine
• Nordic skiing machine
• Treadmill (at low speeds and a flat incline, ideally with a flexible walking deck)

You may be in great shape, but a work or sports injury or a flare-up of an old knee problem might be telling you you’re overdoing it. Some sports that are particularly hard on the knees include running (and hard running sports, like singles tennis), soccer (and sports that involve kicking and contact), basketball (and jumping sports), and downhill skiing.

You can swap out these sports for ones that produce less impact on your knees, thereby asking it to act less like a shock absorber with every movement. Some popular low-impact sports and activities include:

• Walking
• Nordic walking with poles (for a more full-body workout)
• Bicycling (stick to relatively flat terrain)
• Ballroom dancing
• Paddleboarding
• Golf
• Doubles tennis (less running)
• Rowing (as long as you have no problem bending your knee)
• Rollerblading
• Cross-country skiing
• Horseback riding

You can also set up a customized exercise program that uses resistance bands or low-to-medium-sized weights, taking care not to lift anything too heavy or bend too deeply.

Most doctors agree that there is one exercise that is best for most people with knee pain: swimming. We would include water aerobics in that category too.

Exercising in a pool reduces the impact on your knee, but you can still get an excellent full-body aerobic workout that also improves cardiovascular health. It’s easy to adjust your swimming strokes to protect your knee. And you can even use a swim float (also known as a pull buoy) between your legs if kicking is too much and you still want to work your upper body.